Saturday, November 12, 2011

I think I noticed during that Zombie Apocalypse deal: the option to buy and use Vengeance boosts is missing. I'm hoping this was an oversight, as I did occasionally spend the 3 reward points for the 10% stamina boost it provided.

I ran across a Robbing Mastery post a little while ago, and discovered that the boosts are still available from those posts. But what use are they if there's no way to use them?

I couldn't see if they were indeed in my inventory, because I STILL cannot access my inventory tab since the Wafflebots supposedly landed yesterday.

I really hope this is an oversight on Zynga's part; I'd like to be able to use Vengeance boosts occasionally.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Another funny, this one posted by one of our admins, Ann. The screen shot is of a war screen (obviously), which I found hilarious due to the error pig bacon going head-to-head with a bacon double cheeseburger. I wonder who won :D

"Zynga's latest social game for iPhone is a spin-off from its Mafia Wars franchise. Mafia Wars Shakedown's slogan is "Battle friends. Defeat bosses. Rule the world". The aim is still to build up a gangster mob, complete with weapons, armour and vehicles, but the battling features are emphasized."

No thanks, I'll pass. It looks and sounds just like Mafia Wars 2 smooshed into a phone. I've already blocked Mafia Wars 2. And you won't catch me with an iPhone anytime soon until Apple pulls its head out of its butt about the prices and until phone carriers pull their heads out of their butts about the price of data plans.

The Green Monster vehicle is the latest of Zynga's proferred "Collector's Edition items", and as usual, it's going quite slowly. Today's second release went out 6 hours ago, and they've only been able to sell about 1,500 of them. Most of that quantity was in the first couple of hours.

Green Monster
83 Attack 146 Defense
+ 6 Stamina

This item offers +6 stamina skill, with stats of 83 attack and 146 defense, but it's not really a steal at 46 reward points.

It seems to me that Zynga ought to realize their prices are just dumb. They'd sell a lot more of these if they were, say, half the price. As it stands, these items are so passe and overpriced that I normally don't even blog about them anymore. Wake up, Zynga. You don't have a millions-strong fan base anymore, thanks to your screwing the game up constantly. And these Collector's Edition items aren't going to make you rich at this rate.

Team Harold beat Team Kumar in the Bake Sale for an epic victory over munchies madness. You are victorious, and earned 3 Wafflebots!

I saw a lot of people complaining about not receiving their Wafflebots today, but it typically takes a day or so before the prizes are handed out when they do these types of events. True to form, the Wafflebots have just landed. Log in to the game, and you should get a pop-up letting you know how many Wafflebots you've gotten.

I guess these maybe are being added to our inventories right now, as I was unable to access my inventory tab to verify the count.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Oh boy, another limited time property! This one doesn't offer anything that hasn't been offered many times before.

The 'highest' item that can be built is the Cider Truck, which gives +3 attack. Its stats are 100 attack and 75 defense; nothing to crow about, if you want my opinion. But then, I'm not a fan of loot. Pretty new loot does not excite me. Stats do. And +3 attack is kinda gay, since it's already been offered in many other properties.

The ONLY thing worth building for is if you're after stamina. You could add another +3 stamina with the Brewmaster, buildable at level 6.

I might build that far, just in case I ever decide to bulk up on stamina.

Otherwise? This property is fuggin pathetic. Try again, Zynga. This is a waste of time and effort, for the most part. Zynga makes money off of us requesting these build parts. So why can't they offer something better? This is crap.

Many players are wondering how the heck a few other players are still posting gift links, with the main scripts temporarily down for the count due to the change in how free gifts are accepted. I showed you a new beta version of FBMWAddon earlier. Spockholm has been working on an update, and knowing them, we won't have to wait long.

When I saw Mimi J. posting Spock gift links though, I had to ask how she was doing it, since my Linkanator still wasn't working. She pointed me in the direction of John's Mafia Tools, where a version of Spock's Link-a-nator has already been updated to handle the gifting changes.

I did a quick check to verify that it does work. It appears and posts pretty much exactly the same as the original Link-a-nator.

There are some other script mods and backups to be found, but I haven't poked through them as of yet. Although, I was amused and flattered to see a copy of our Mr. Wizard's One bookmarklet there. I'll have to be sure and show that to Mr. Wizard :0)

From the Mafia Wars blog. This means that Double Gifts are gone, but I think I don't mind that. It would be even nicer if we could bypass the Facebook requests page altogether, but short of just ignoring that page, it doesn't sound like it's going to be the case. I wonder what happens when the ZMC is full. Will back-logged requests show up after accepting current gifts and then refreshing?

Sending & requesting gifts and asking your Mafia members to join your City and Mission Crews has received an upgrade to make getting help from your Mafia easier than ever! Here are the recent changes to the Requesting experience:

A New Look

The Facebook-style list and buttons that previously appeared in the Request window have been replaced to better match the look of Mafia Wars. (See the Crew Request window at left as an example.)

Select More Recipients

The maximum number of recipients you can select at a time has been increased to 50, and you can send gifts and requests to multiple batches of 50!

Fewer Clicks Required

You can now check a box that allows you to skip seeing Facebook's request post preview and second "Send Requests" button when you send requests to the same recipients in the future!

How To Send Requests With Fewer Clicks

When you receive the Facebook request post confirmation window the first time you send a request with the new system, make sure that the box next to "Don't ask before sending Mafia Wars requests to..." is checked before clicking Facebook's "Send Requests" button. This whitelists the recipients so you aren't presented with the Facebook request post confirmation window when sending requests to them in the future. Whitelist your entire mafia and you may never have to see that Facebook request post confirmation window ever again!

A Note About Mafia Wars Requests on the Facebook Game Requests Page

The enhancements above were made possible by shifting the handling of Mafia Wars requests to be entirely in-game. Another change that results from this is in the behavior of Mafia Wars requests on the Facebook Game Requests page. Before, you were able to accept Mafia Wars requests on that page. Now, the "Accept" buttons bring you into the game, where you can accept all gifts, etc. in the ZMC. Also of note, handling requests entirely in our system means the error codes KE-29, AF-77, and MC-24 sometimes encountered when accepting gifts through the Facebook Game Request page will cease to be problem! These error messages will become a thing of the past once all old requests are cleared out, which should happen within approximately 30 days.

FBMWAddon has a beta version that was prepared for this change in free gift links! You can download it HERE. The download links are in the first post on that page. I've done some brief testing in Firefox with success, and others are saying the Chrome extension is working as well.

There are some instructions on how to use the free gift link feature of FBMWAddon in THIS post.(last part of the post).